Pending
before the Court is the Magistrate Judge's Report and
Recommendation (Doc. No. 9) on Defendant's Motion to
Dismiss (Doc. No. 4). Defendant filed objections to the
Report and Recommendation (Doc. No. 10) and Plaintiff filed a
response (Doc. No. 11). The Magistrate Judge recommends the
motion to dismiss be granted as to defendant's claims
involving the listing of a bankruptcy on his credit report
and denied as to Plaintiff's claim related to an
inaccurate account number on his credit report. After a
de novo review, and for the following reasons,
Defendant's objections are OVERRULED, the Report and
Recommendation (Doc. No. 9) is ADOPTED, and Defendant's
Motion to Dismiss (Doc. No. 4) is GRANTED IN PART, and DENIED
IN PART.

I.
STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under
28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Local Rule 72.03(b)(3), a
district court reviews de novo any portion of a
report and recommendation to which a specific objection is
made. United States v. Curtis, 237 F.3d 598, 603
(6th Cir. 2001). General or conclusory objections are
insufficient. See Zimmerman v. Cason, 354 Fed.Appx.
228, 230 (6th Cir. 2009). Thus, “only those specific
objections to the magistrate's report made to the
district court will be preserved for appellate review.”
Id. (quoting Smith v. Detroit Fed'n of
Teachers, 829 F.2d 1370, 1373 (6th Cir. 1987)). In
conducting the review, the court may “accept, reject,
or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or
recommendations made by the magistrate judge.” 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C).

Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) permits dismissal of a
complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can
be granted. For purposes of a motion to dismiss, a court must
take all the factual allegations in the complaint as true.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). To survive a
motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient
factual allegations, accepted as true, to state a claim for
relief that is plausible on its face. Id. A claim
has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads facts that
allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id.
In reviewing a motion to dismiss, the Court construes the
complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff,
accepts its allegations as true, and draws all reasonable
inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Directv, Inc. v.
Treesh, 487 F.3d 471, 476 (6th Cir. 2007). Allegations
of a complaint drafted by a pro se litigant are held
to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by
lawyers in the sense that a pro se complaint will be
liberally construed. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S.
89, 94 (2007).

II.
ANALYSIS

Plaintiff
alleges that Defendant Equifax violated Section 609 of the
Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C., § 1681g, because
it reported an incomplete account number for Plaintiff's
account with Monterey Collections Services. Plaintiff does
not dispute that the account belongs to him, but claims the
account number listed in his credit file is inaccurate.

Section
609 of the FCRA states:

(a) … Every consumer reporting agency shall, upon
request, and subjection to section 610(a)(1) of this title,
clearly and accurately disclose to the consumer:

(1) All information in the consumer's file at the time of
the request, except that -

(A) if the consumer to whom the file relates requests that
the first 5 digits of the social security number (or similar
identification number) of the consumer not be included in the
disclosure and the consumer reporting agency has received
appropriate proof of the identity of the requester, the
consumer reporting agency shall so truncate such number in
such disclosure …

Plaintiff
cites to a Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) staff
opinion letter which states that “a credit reporting
agency that always scrambles or truncates account (or social
security) numbers does not technically comply with Section
609 because it does not provide ‘accurate' (and
perhaps not ‘clear') disclosure of ‘all
information' in the file.” (Doc. No. 1-1 (referring
to “FTC opinion, ” FTC Informal Staff Opinion
Letter, Denise A. Darcy, June 30, 2000, available at
https://www.ftc.gov.policy/advisory-opinions/advisory-opinion-darcy-06-30-00.)

Equifax
responds that the FTC opinion letter is non-binding and that
using a truncated account number does not violate Section
609. In support of this argument, Equifax cites a case from
another district that determined “as a matter of law,
scrambling or truncating a consumer's account number is a
reasonable procedure to protect the consumer's
information…” ...

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